While other industries have suffered the nonprofit arts world continues to build in strength while it encourages the growth of innumerable small businesses on its periphery thereby creating more jobs.
I launched Chefs for Humanity a national nonprofit with my voice heart and money from my own pocket. Money gives you the ability to make a difference in the world and when used in a positive way is a lot of fun.
Music is a language and different people who come along are each using that language to do something different but all coming at it in a similar vein inasmuch as it's always community based and for the most part nonprofit. Most bands don't ever come within a mile of profit - clearly these people are not playing music to make money.
Under current law volunteers who are not working with an official nonprofit organization are not covered by the Volunteer Protection Act. Therefore there are absolutely no legal protections for the average American who wishes to volunteer.
I hope telling stories though 'Making a Difference' - as in my academic work and nonprofit work - will help me to live my grandmother's adage of 'Life is not about what happens to you but about what you do with what happens to you.'
I basically believe the medical insurance industry should be nonprofit not profit-making. There is no way a health reform plan will work when it is implemented by an industry that seeks to return money to shareholders instead of using that money to provide health care.
In today's social business marketplace Facebook is one of the best places for nonprofits to be discovered and connect with a larger audience on the basis of shared values. So to get started a non-profit should launch a Facebook page and invite your existing real world community to connect your cause and their networks.